Knead Pizza Now!

What happens when you want a big, juicy slice of pizza, fresh out of the oven, warm and inviting? Before you answer that, imagine that you are on a D_I_E_T. Just imagine.

That is usually how I look when I want to bite into one and can’t. Especially with M checking on me every now and then. He is a very involved partner, yes he is.

But what happened the other day was quite interesting. My mum was a-visiting, which usually means lots of food and pampering and travelling and visiting families and friends and shopping and.. phew! You get the idea. But when mum comes down, she hates it when we order take-away. She just wont take it. No way. How can you eat that junk? Why not make it at home? Why spend for something will turn out yummier if made at home? With love? And dedication? And fresh ingredients?

I gave up. I had to take matter into my own hands now. And decided that, for a change, even with mommy in town, I will cook. I will break into her holy sanctum and make a mess and cook up a storm.

And that brings us back to - What happens when you want a big, juicy slice of pizza, fresh out of the oven, warm and inviting? AND mum is home?

You make one from scratch of course.

No-Yeast Pizza With Fresh Tomato Sauce, Mozzarella, Mushroom, Bell-Pepper, Basil and Onion:

Ingredients

• For Pizza Dough:

1. 1-1/4 cup flour
2. 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3. 1/2 teaspoon salt
4. 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
5. 1/2 cup water

• For Tomato Sauce

1. 1 tablespoon olive oil
2. 1 garlic clove
3. 1 packet (about 250-300 ml) of tomato puree
4. 1/2 teaspoon oregano, dried
5. Salt and pepper to taste

• For Pizza Toppings

1. Mozzarella cheese
2. 1 red bell pepper, sliced
3. 1 large onion, sliced into rings
4. 2-3 large button mushrooms, sliced
5. Fresh basil or dried basil leaves

Procedure

• For dough

1. Mix dry ingredients.
2. Add the water and oil.
3. Stir together. If dough is stiff, add more water.
4. Knead the dough for 3-4 minutes. Set aside.

• For tomato sauce

1. When dough is resting, in a saucepan, gently heat the olive oil.
2. Mince the garlic clove and fry in the oil for a minute.
3. Pour in the tomato puree. Instead of this, one can also use 2-3 large tomatoes chopped up. Fry this on medium heat for sometime, about 5 minutes.
4. Mix in the oregano, salt and pepper.
5. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and bubble for about 10 more minutes. Cool.

• Assemble pizza

1. Pre-heat the oven to about 160 degrees centigrade.
2. Meanwhile, roll the rested dough into round shapes of desired size. I usually like to make one medium sized pizza of thin crust out of this dough.
3. Place the rolled out dough on a lightly oiled baking tray (so that it doesn’t stick). Pour the fresh tomato sauce on the dough and evenly spread it around.
4. Arrange the toppings over the sauce. Break of chunks of the mozzarella cheese and place evenly among the other toppings.
5. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes till the dough is cooked.

Mum was impressed. I impressed mommy. It was a GRAND day.

Bell-peppers Are Versatile. Yes They Are.

I have always been a fan of bell peppers. Capsicum. Whatever.

Anyways, I have always been a great fan of bell-peppers. Red, yellow, green.. sometimes orange.. they make any dish bright, zingy and add tremendous flavor. Fry them, steam them, saute them, grill them, stuff them – versatility, thy last name is bell-pepper. Or wait, is it bell-pepper, thy last name is..?

Umm never mind.

The point I am trying to make is that are just simply awesome. My mum used to stuff them with paneer (cottage cheese) for a healthy vegan kick, or grill them with chicken for the days when we kids needed something non-veg.

However, I am going to post a recipe – a two-in-one recipe – which is my sister’s contribution. Its a warm salad, with tri-colored bell-peppers and onions, and for protein either shredded leftover grilled/boiled chicken or crumbled fresh paneer. You could also used feta cheese. It goes great anything.

Here it is now, my warm bell-pepper salad with chicken/paneer.

Warm Tri-Pepper Salad With Chicken Or Paneer (serves 2 to 3 people):

Ingredients

• 1 green bell-pepper, sliced into long thin strips
• 1 yellow bell-pepper, sliced into long thin strips
• 1 red bell-pepper, sliced into long thin strips
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1 full tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon coriander or parsley, chopped fine
• Salt and pepper-powder (both black or white pepper can be used)
• For non-vegetarian version,  2 about 300 grams of grilled or boiled shredded chicken. You could buy boneless chicken breasts, cut them into small bite size chunks, and saute them in 1 teaspoon of oil, 2 tablespoons of pepper and salt to taste.
• For vegetarian version, 200-300 grams of paneer (cottage cheese), cut into chunks and slightly browned in a frying pan in 1 teaspoon of oil, pepper and salt, or alternately, just fresh home-made cottage cheese crumbled into bits.
• About 2 tablespoons of grated cheddar cheese (optional)

Procedure

• In a saucepan, heat the olive oil. Add 1 teaspoon pepper powder and a pinch of salt. Add the onions and saute till translucent.
• Now add the three types of sliced bell-peppers/capsicum. Mix well and cover with a lid – let it heat up and cook till the bell-pepper slices soften.
• Remove from the heat. In a mixing bowl, add the cooked bell-peppers and chicken or paneer, whichever you are using.
• Add salt and lots of black or white pepper powder. Mix well.
• Now sprinkle coriander/parsley and grated cheddar cheese on top.
• Serve warm.

The capsicum/bell-peppers along with the pepper powder is also a great salad in itself. But of course, a bit of chicken and cheese never hurts.

So there you go, two recipes in one post. Enjoy!

Quick Fix Dinner: Creamy Crunchy Egg Salad

Its a drag to cook on certain days. Yes, even for a foodie like me. Socializing, office, phone calls, more socializing – tends to sap out all energy from a person. And yet, come dinnertime, who wants to compromise?

Not me, no siree. I want something yummy every single day. And a recent spat of requests to post salad-recipes inspired me tonight.

Now when I talk of a salad, the first thing that comes to my mind is – of course – EGGS! Boiled, scrambled, poached, fried: whatever be the way, eggs never fail me. My comfort food, my soul food. And a creamy egg salad is on the top of my list of all-time favorites.

However, what I am posting now is a healthy(ier) version of a creamy egg salad. Crunchy and creamy at the same time, all you need is a slice of toast to complete your meal.

Creamy Crunchy Egg Salad:

Ingredients (serves 2)

1. 4 small boiled eggs – I like hard boiled,  but even soft boiled is perfect.
2. 1 large boiled potato, chopped into small cubes
3. 1 medium cucumber, diced into small cubes
4. 1 medium onion, chopped finely
5. Couple of teaspoons of chopped coriander
6. Juice of half a lime
7. 1 green chilly chopped finely for heat (optional)
8. 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil or mustard oil, whichever you like
9. Pepper and salt, to taste

Procedure

1. In a large mixing bowl, dump the chopped potato, onion and cucumber. Mix it up.
2. Crumble the boiled eggs on top of this mixture.
3. Add the juice of lime, the green chilly, the olive oil/mustard oil and salt and pepper. Mix well. The egg makes this mixture very creamy so you need not add any mayonnaise or other creamy dressings.
4. Divide the salad into individual serving bowls, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of chopped coriander on top, and serve!

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,300 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

There’s A Zebra In My Cake!

Ok.

Don’t panic.

There’s not exactly a huge 4-legged wild animal from Africa IN my cake. Its just that my cake has absolutely impressive zebra stripes in it.

For the uninitiated, I am going to quote what is written by Connie Veneracion which will pretty much explain what this cake is all about:

“A zebra cake is basically a chocolate marble cake. The difference is in the pattern. Instead of the marbling created by running a knife through randomly dropped blobs of vanilla and chocolate cake batter, the zebra pattern is created by pouring small cupfuls of vanilla and chocolate cake batter one on top of the other. The last cupful of batter poured pushes the one below it causing it to spread.”

And it looks S-T-U-N-N-I-N-G.

Be it a safari themed birthday party or just a wow-cake for the weekend brunch, a zebra cake can create that right amount of impact. And it is so versatile! You can tweak the flavors to anything you like or want or keep it totally simple and orthodox.

I made a banana-peanut butter-chocolate zebra cake sprinkled with choco-chips this time. The taste – Umm mmm. And this is how it looked:

Banana-Peanut Butter-Chocolate-Choco Chips Zebra Cake:

Ingredients

1. 4 large eggs
2. 1 cup fine sugar
3. 1 cup milk (low fat is fine)
4. 1 cup vegetable oil
5. 1 and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6. 2 cups all purpose flour
7. 1 tablespoons baking powder
8. 1/4 teaspoon salt
9. Chocolate chips (optional)

Additional ingredients for chocolate batter:

1. 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2. 1 teaspoon chocolate flavor/essence (optional)

Additional ingredients for banana-peanut butter batter:

1. 1 ripe banana
2. 2 tablespoons peanut butter (I used smooth, but chunky is fine too)

Procedure

• Preheat oven to 180 degree centigrade.
• Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a round cake pan with vegetable oil.
• In a large bowl, mix together eggs and sugar until mixture is light and creamy and the sugar has mostly been dissolved. Stir in milk, vegetable oil, vanilla extract.
• In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Pour into wet ingredients and whisk to combine.
• Divide the batter into two portions.
• In the first portion:  mix in the sifted cocoa powder and chocolate extract.
• In the second portion: mix in mashed ripe banana and peanut  butter and whisk well.
• Now in the prepared cake tin, put a ladle of peanut butter-banana batter into the center of the pan and let it spread slightly on its own. Now put a ladle of chocolate batter in the center of the vanilla. It will push out the other batter and, as it sits for a moment, will also spread itself. Alternating ladle-fulls of the two batters, repeat the technique until all the batter has been used up.
• Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is light gold and a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Let the cake cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then take the cake out and cool a bit before slicing.

This is how it looked fresh out of the oven:

I digged in right into it!

Note:

• This post here from My Cake School is a good tutorial on how to create a zebra cake. Helps!
• The banana-peanut butter part of the cake turned out to be a little dense for me even though the taste was absolutely spot on – maybe next time I need some more baking powder for that half of the batter? Not sure. If you find a solution, let me know.

Game Night Grub – Beer Battered Chicken Strips

In any gathering, ask the question “What is the best thing in the world?” and (most of) the men in the group will say “Beer!”

Not to forget the large chunk of my dear ladies who will go “But of course!”

Friends, meet-ups and beer go pretty good together. Add a game-night to this and what you have got is lots of fun, laughter and of course, finger food! Deep fried goodies are always welcome, but never more so than when watching an interesting match on TV. And for me, the bestest yummiest of all is beer battered deep fried chicken strips – who can say no chicken and beer together in one happy marriage.

So this is what I made recently for M, a couple friends and soccer reruns.

Beer Battered Melt-In-Your-Mouth Chicken Strips:

Ingredients

1. Boneless chicken (about 250-300 grams), cut into thin strips
2. Good quality beer, about 160-170 ml
3. 1 cup sifted plain flour
4. Salt and pepper to taste
5. Vegetable oil for deep frying
   

Procedure

• Mix flour, salt and pepper in a medium size bowl.
• Beat in cold beer with a whisk until smooth. Let stand 30 minutes-1 hour in the refrigerator.
• Pour enough vegetable oil in a large saucepan to a depth of around 1 inch. Heat it till a drop of batter sizzles and golden within about a minute seconds.
• Dip chicken pieces into beer batter a few at a time, allowing excess to drain back into bowl.
• Fry chicken pieces, turning once, until chicken is done. (Test the first couple to check the done-ness).
• Dig in! Add a dash of tobasco sauce for that extra punch

Red Velvet And That Not-So-Little Boy’s Smile

Soft as velvet, smooth as a well-aged single malt. Life gets so dreamy sometimes!

After months and months of stressing and stretching, we finally found a reason to celebrate. Not like we need one anyway. As my sister puts it – “Its a party at the house of K any day”. Nevertheless, once in a while, it has to be extra special. And what better than velvet to put a spark back into tired techies’ lives?

Clueless? I am talking about the sinful, decadent, to-die-for, Martha’s special Red Velvet Cakes – cupcakes to be exact. It is supposedly the most popular cupcake of all times. More on the red-velvet phenomenon here.

M decided its his turn to bake and I happily obliged. And all I did was sit back and read out the ingredient list from my bookmarks. And he did a pret-ty good job, I must say!

Here’s the proof ->

This was the first time I have ever had the privilege of feasting on this delicious velvety-ness: that too, baked for me by non other than the better half.

Bliss.

No wonder my boy kept smiling at my “Oohs” and “Aaahs”.. Its incredibly sinfully tasty.

The texture is just beautiful – with just the right hint of chocolate, not over-powering. And the creme cheese frosting – though store bought – brought out the delicate balance between vinegar and chocolate.

Here’s to many more cupcakes in my tummy!

Red Velvet Cupcakes:

Ingredients

• 2 and 1/2 cups flour
• 1 and 1/2 cups regular white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable or castor Canola oil
• 1 cup buttermilk at room temperature
• 2 large eggs at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract/ 2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In another bowl, gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla until well mixed. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.
3. Sccop the batter into a muffin tray till about 2/3rd filled.
4. Bake in oven for about 20-to-30 minutes depending on the size of the muffins and the oven.
5. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick – crumbs are good, soggy batter is bad.
6. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting (I used store bought creme cheese frosting – even plain vanilla frosting goes good with this!).

And once done, go *chomp* like I did ->

Dark Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins

Oh how much I adore her! Nigella, I mean. She is beautiful & smart, can cook up a storm, tends to talk in sheer poetry, and makes me wanna shift to a house near her’s, getting invites for lunch, dinner, cookies, cakes, teas and what-nots. I just want to be her friend, and I know I am in queue – maybe in the 1-billionth position?

Well, nevertheless, I do adore her. And whenever I watch her show, I tend to run to the kitchen and try and whip up something yummy. Sometimes, these urges die a pre-mature death, sometimes I experiment a bit and fail… But some lucky times the adventure ends up in something like this:

Doesn’t that look gorgeous?

Ok let me re-phrase.

Does not that simply look G O R G E O U S!? Yes, it does. Ummmm, and it tastes even better than it looks.

Choco-lovers, rejoice, and join me in taking a moment to get up from your seats and do a little victory/happy/chocolate-induced-trance jiggle. There we go.

Now lets get back to the recipe.

It is a Dark Chocolate Muffin with a sprinkling of Chocolate Chips on top and, of course, in the batter too. I was not too sure about the texture but trust dear Nigella to know exactly what she is talking about. Even though it had that (lovely) bitterness to it, and usually, M is not much of a dark-chocolate fan, he ended up gobbling up two in a row. I don’t blame him. It was just perfect.

*Sigh*

Dark Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins

I borrowed the recipe from here and made a few minor adjustments.

Ingredients

• 1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 tablespoons heaped best quality cocoa powder that you can find. Alternately, use 2 tablespoons for non-dark, no bittery taste
• 3/4 cup superfine sugar/castor sugar
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon yogurt
• 1 teaspoon plain white vinegar
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Procedure

Absolutely easy to make.

1. Just put the flour, baking powder, cocoa, sugar and 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips into a large bowl. Mix it all.
2. Now, pour all the liquid ingredients (including yogurt and vinegar and vanilla) into another bowl. Mix everything together.
3. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together. Don’t worry about lumps – Nigella always says that a lumpy batter makes the best muffins.
4. Spoon the batter into a prepared muffin tray.
5. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips on top of each muffin.
6. Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are done in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes.

DONE! One piece of this, and I can even brave a Monday morning. Breakfast for tomorrow What about you guys?

O’live’ it up!

Its been a very crazy, hectic phase. I apologize for the lack of recipes, but I have been really caught up with too many things to even mention here. In fact, my last post was almost 2 months back. I know, I know! That is INDEED a long long time.

But don’t worry, I have been cooking as a stress buster every week at the least. I haven’t gotten down to clicking the much required pictures though: that is another reason for the no-show.

Anyways, I don’t want to start off with excuses of work, life and what not. I’d rather get down to the serious business of eating. And boy, have I been eating!

I am in my hometown for a short couple of days, taking a break from my life in Bangalore, reliving my glorious childhood with mum, dad, aunts, uncles and millions of happy memories: most of which revolve around, what else, FOOD! My mum’s world famous (well, at least in the entire extended family) duck roast; my elder aunt’s absolutely stunning hilsa/ilish fish in vinegar; my youngest aunt’s gorgeous chicken curry; my uncle’s simple, mild and cooling sour lentils: the list just goes on and on. And I have been gorging on all these ever since I reached here.

However, tonight was a different night. I decided to make a simple Italian-ish something for everyone. And that is where, my rice in basil and olive oil comes into the picture. Served as a side for fresh chicken breasts in a mild creme sauce, it was just the break my family needed from the barrage of heavy food they have been cooking and eating in the past 2 days: a much needed lull in their mad kitchen rush.

Rice Cooked in (*Garlicky*) Olive Oil and Fresh Basil:

(measurements mentioned serves 1-2 people)

(“Garlicky” is optional. It tastes just as fine without the garlic. But then, hey, I am a garlic lover!)

Ingredients:

• Plain boiled rice, 1 medium cup. I used short grained rice, but anything goes.
• Fresh Italian basil, 3-4 leaves.
• Olive Oil, 2 teaspoons. I used extra virgin olive oil.
• (Optional) Garlic, 1/3rd clove, minced.
• Salt to taste.

Procedure:

• In a sauce pan, add the olive oil. Add the garlic (if using) and fry a bit.
• Now add the cooked rice, sprinkle salt, and heat through.
• Finally, add the chopped basil leaves, heat for 1-2 minutes and you are done!

This in one helluva easy thing to make. To make it a one pot dish, I usually add fresh shrimps to the oil and then add the rice after a couple of minutes. I served it with some chicken, but that is another post

Bon Appetit!

What? No Meat In My Meatballs!!!? Hey-lo?

That is how you’d scream if you ate the delicious fake meatballs I made the other day.

But first, the story.

I am thrilled by the whole vegan thing. Once in a while, after a week of meat frenzy, it sure is nice to give my system a little bit of a rest by focussing on simple, fresh, organic produce that makes me feel healthier by the very act of cooking it!

This week, my plan was to find a replacement for one of our all time favorites: meatballs. We both love meatballs in any kind of sauce – tomato, creamy, pepper. But then there is something like too-much-meat. And taste-buds crying out for a change.

So?

I used beet! Yes, humble beetroot. I usually buy it for salads, soups and juices. But once in a while it ends up in a spicy curry or a tasty stew. This time, it ended up like this:

Beetroot & Carrot ‘Meatballs’:

Ingredients

• 1 large beetroot & 2 carrots, grated
• 1 cup green peas, shelled
• 1 large onion & 1 inch ginger, finely chopped
• 1 green chilli, de-seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour & 1/4 cup chickpea flour
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tomatoes (chopped), 1 large onion (chopped) & 1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste for the sauce
• 1 tablespoon store bought stir fry sauce
• Salt and sugar to taste
• Oil to fry

Procedure

• Mix the beet, carrot, ginger, onion, peas, flours, water, ginger, chilli and water to make a batter. Add salt and a pinch of sugar.
• In a deep fryer, heat enough oil and fry little balls of the batter till golden brown and done. Alternately, drop spoonfuls of batter on a greased baking tray and bake @ 180 degree Celsius for 20-30 minutes till done.
• In a saucepan, heat half a tablespoon of oil and fry the onions and tomatoes and ginger-garlic paste till tomatoes go gooey. Add the stir fry sauce and then let it bubble for a minute. Finally add the fake meatballs, add salt and sugar to taste and heat through.
• Serve!

I loved it topped onto a bowlful of plain boiled rice.

There, you can see my yummy little bottle of stir fry sauce.

Try it! And let me know if experiment with any variations.